February Flowers

by Fan Wu

  According to undergraduate tradition, when the evening finals ended we would play a poker game called “Tractor” all night long till dawn. Since finals had begun, we ’d had no curfew, so we didn’t even need to buy candles. All the rooms were full of loud laughter and happy screams. Pingping, standing barefoot on her desk, was decorating the window with some tiny twinkling light bulbs. Donghua was moving chairs around and putting away all the textbooks and examination materials. A few other classmates were sitting on Yishu’s bed, debating who would team up with whom in the poker game—to make the game more competitive, they had invited students from other departments. Both Pingping and Donghua were good players, so they decided to play in separate rooms to guarantee higher winning odds for our own department. Pingping had asked me to join the game but I didn’t feel like celebrating.

  I fumbled around my bookshelf and took out a paperback copy of Camus’s The Stranger—I had decided to go to the library. The book was thin. I rolled it into a tube and tucked it in my pocket. It was much colder out than I had thought—perhaps close to zero. I wore only a sweater and a thin jacket but I didn’t want to return to the dorm to put more clothes on.

  The sky was starless. I turned up the collar of my jacket, put my hands into the pockets, and walked along the graveled footpath circling Violin Lake. Nobody else seemed to be around.

  I sat on a stone bench at the edge of the lake. The chill from the stone immediately penetrated my jeans, ran up through my chest, and reached my nose. I sneezed aloud. The echo reverberated over the lake and into the woods, making a continuous wung, wung, wung sound, as though all the trees were sneezing as well. The lake was calm, its surface like a steel board reflecting the sky. I stared at the lake, bent low, neck drawn back, and hugged my jacket around my body. I sat like this for ten minutes or so till two lovers, leaning on each other, walked by. They kept looking at me over their shoulders so I stood up. My legs were numb. I touched my face—cold as ice. It took me a while to massage away the numbness and then I trudged to the library.

  Room One was only half full but my seat was taken. When I walked in the person sitting there raised his head, looking surprised, then smiled. It was the guy who usually sat on the end seat in the front row, near the door. Sometimes, walking by, I had glimpsed the books on his desk—mostly physics books, often piled up high. Once or twice I ran into him in the hallway but we never greeted each other.

  Occasionally Pingping and I had been in the library together when he was there. Later, Pingping said she was sure that he liked me. One reason she gave was that he had walked to the window next to me three times within two hours to look out. “It’s dark outside. What could he possibly see?” Pingping said secretively. “He was peeking at you and your books.”

  His own seat near the door was empty. Why was he sitting in my seat? Was his seat not available when he went in? I told myself to sit somewhere far from him but for some reason I sat across from him, as if wanting him to feel guilty about taking my seat.

  “Hello,” he said.

  “Hey,” I said nervously. I took the Camus book from my pocket and thumbed through it—I had read it four or five times already and could remember the story by heart.

  A few minutes passed and I was still staring at the same page. The unnaturally bright fluorescent lights seemed to have sapped my energy and made me feel listless, isolated, and exposed. I shouldn’t have come to the library tonight. I wished I had gone to Shenzhen with Miao Yan but I knew she wouldn’t have allowed me to. There were so many questions in my mind. Had she decided to get an abortion? Would she bleed a lot? Could I trust Du Sheng to take good care of her?

  The guy was observing me from the corner of his eye. He had well-chiseled features and tanned skin. On any other day I might have felt uncomfortable with such attention from a stranger, but tonight I felt like speaking to someone. Anyone. I needed a companion.

  As I was pondering this he pushed a piece of paper toward me, folded neatly into a square.

  I unfolded it: “Ming, I’m sorry for having taken your seat. When I walked in your seat was empty, so I thought you wouldn’t be coming to the library tonight.” The note was signed “Sang Wei.”

  His handwriting was delicate and accurately formed, each character the same size and the spacing between characters perfectly measured.

  He knew my name and my seat! I glanced at him again and met his eyes—he looked friendly and intelligent. I quickly lowered my head.

  I wrote on the back of the paper: “You needn’t apologize. That seat isn’t assigned to me and anybody can have it. You came first, of course it’s yours.”

  He smiled when he saw my note. He took out another piece of paper and wrote: “I’ve noticed you and your seat. I wanted to introduce myself but didn’t get a chance. I’m not the kind of guy who knows how to approach girls. I’m glad we finally talked.”

  I replied: “Want to go out for a walk?”

  He took my note. “Good idea,” he whispered. He pushed aside his books and stood up.

  We walked to the library’s outdoor garden. He was almost a head taller than me. In a dark blue sweatshirt and black jeans, he looked thin but athletically built.

  The garden wasn’t very big but had a variety of plants. Succulents bordered the reddish tiled ground. Evergreen plants such as holly and camellia prospered, forming a dense wall behind the succulents. In one corner, a broad-leafed ivy made its way to the top of a silk cotton tree. In the middle of the garden was a tiny pond with water lilies. There were no benches, but flat-surfaced rocks here and there served well as seats. When I was studying in the library I often came here for a short break.

  “Why did you sit in my chair?” I asked when we were standing next to the pond.

  “When you sit there you always seem absorbed in your books. I thought I’d be much more productive if I sat there. And it was true. I completed a tough paper within a few hours.”

  I knew he was mocking me. “How do you know my name?”

  “Your books told me. I also know that you like reading literary reviews. I thought all girls in Chinese literature read love stories every day. You don’t know how much we science students admire you arts and humanities students.”

  “Are you studying physics?” Thinking of the books on his desk, I had blurted out my question.

  “How do you know? Did you notice me as well?” He looked happy.

  “You just look like a person who might study physics.” I blushed.

  “Do you mean I’m boring?”

  “Oh, no.” I could feel the warmth on my face.

  More people came to the garden. It was nine, a good time for a break.

  “Let me walk you home,” he suggested.

  We walked toward West Five. The streetlights stretched our shadows into two long, thin poles. He held the handlebar of his bike rigidly with both hands while I walked on the other side of the bike.

  “You—” I said.

  “You—” he said at the same time.

  “Ladies first.” He smiled. His smile was natural and amiable—the kind of smile that makes you feel safe.

  “Tell me something about yourself,” I said.

  “I’m in the last year of graduate school. Twenty -three years old. I did my undergraduate study in Qinghua University. Physics as well. I grew up in Suzhou and live ten minutes from the Lingering Garden. I have one older sister.” He spoke rhythmically.

  “You don’t have to tell me that much. I’m not a police-woman.” I was amused.

  We were now walking along Violin Lake. He parked his bike against a tree, then extended his arms forward, stretching them a few times. “Do you come here a lot?”

  “Hardly ever. Too many couples come here,” I said. Not far away, a couple was kissing behind a tree.

  “You’re too nice. I sometimes come here just to disturb them.”

  “Are you jealous?”

  “A little, maybe.” He stopped and stared at me. “You don’t have a boyfriend in your
hometown or somewhere else, do you?”

  “No,” I said after hesitating briefly.

  “I don’t have a girlfriend, either. Frankly, I’m a little afraid of girls. I had a bad experience with a girl once.”

  We circled the lake, discussing books and movies. He had read many of the books I liked, including Wuthering Heights and Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra. At some point we talked about our childhoods. Like my parents, his parents were also exiled during the Cultural Revolution, but to a farm in the most northeastern Heilongjiang Province. On a map of the country, the province was like the head of a rooster.

  “You were lucky,” he said. “Your farm had much nicer weather. In Heilongjiang we had blizzards for months.”

  “I’ve never seen a blizzard.”

  “Believe me, you don’t want to.”

  “Our farm was near a river,” I said. “Sometimes I went there to fish or catch shrimp with other kids. In the summers my ba took me swimming there. I never learned how to swim, though. He was too protective.”

  “We had no rivers, but a lot of mountains. My sister and I liked to pick mushrooms and listen to our echoes from the mountains when we called out. We also went to the woods to steal honey from wild beehives. We were always hungry. Once bees stung me so badly that for a week I had to cover my face, all except for my eyes, when I went to school.”

  It was the first time that I had felt comfortable being with a guy. When we wanted to sit, there were no available benches—they had all been taken. We were surrounded by lovers who were cuddling and kissing.

  We walked back to the main road. When we passed a cypress tree near a basketball court, Sang Wei stopped and took my hand unexpectedly. My mind raced. Was he going to kiss me? On my lips, or cheek, or forehead? What should I do if he kissed me? What should I say to him if I didn’t want to be kissed?

  I thought of the kissing scene Pingping had described. No, I wouldn’t let him kiss me on the first date—if tonight could be called a date. I had just met him, barely knew him. Even Pingping and her boyfriend didn’t kiss until their second date.

  He must have sensed my uneasiness. He let go of my hand, looking embarrassed. “I don’t want to scare you away. Let’s be friends first.”

  I nodded, appreciating his concern, and walked ahead.

  We were approaching West Five. From the road, Miao Yan’s room could be seen—it was dark, so none of her roommates were home. They must have been playing poker somewhere, or partying at a club. They didn’t know what she had gone through. They didn’t know anything about her. They were just jealous of her beauty and her pretty clothes. They wanted her to go back to Yunnan.

  I was suddenly anxious about her abortion. Why did she tell me not to contact her? Would she do something stupid? Something stupid like…my stomach ached. She wouldn’t kill herself, would she? I shook my head hard and quickened my pace. No, she would never do anything like that. She was so young and pretty. I had to call Du Sheng to see how she was doing, once I returned to the dorm.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.” Sang Wei had caught up with me.

  “Oh, sorry, I was just thinking about my best friend. She’s going through tough times,” I said apologetically.

  “Who is she? You always go to the library alone.”

  “You wouldn’t know her. The campus is so big.”

  “You can’t be sure. I’ve been here for a while.”

  “Her name is Miao Yan. I bet you don’t know her.”

  “Miao Yan? A final-year student?”

  “You know her?”

  “I used to,” he said curtly.

  My heart fell—they must have been more than just casual acquaintances. “How did you meet her?” I asked.

  “At a party for graduate students. She was an undergraduate and I didn’t know why she was there.”

  “That was it?”

  “I don’t understand how the two of you can be good friends. You’re so different from each other.”

  “In what way?”

  He stood closer. “Ming, you shouldn’t be with her.”

  “What happened?”

  He stared at me for a moment. “I’d better tell you. That night, unlike the other girls who were waiting to be invited, she offered to teach some of the guys to dance. I’d never seen a girl who was so gracious and kind. Of course, every guy fell in love with her after the party. For a while she frequented our dorm, each time being seen with a different guy.”

  He paused and held my hand again. “Ming, I have to be honest with you. I went out with her briefly as well. I don’t know why. Perhaps I just couldn’t resist her beauty. She was never serious with me or with any of the other guys. Later she dumped us all. There were no explanations, no excuses. It was like she was taking revenge on us. Or I guess none of the students were rich enough for her. It was also said that she was looking for someone to marry so she could stay in Guangdong. There was a lot of gossip about her. You don’t want to know what we called her at that time. Ming, you shouldn’t be with her. She ’s a terrible person.”

  “That is not true!” I shook off his hand. Two scenes invaded my mind’s eye: a group of strange men at the disco bar surrounding Miao Yan, laughing frantically, and Miao Yan lying bloodstained on the operating table, moaning in pain.

  “She isn’t that kind of person! She wouldn’t stay with a guy just because he’s rich or because she wanted to remain in Guangdong! You don’t understand her. You don’t know anything about her. She doesn’t want to go back to her hometown because she hates her father!”

  Sang Wei stared at me, a little taken aback by my sudden fury. For a few minutes neither of us spoke.

  “Did you have sex with her?” I asked.

  “Ming, let’s drop the subject.” He averted his eyes. “She isn’t worthy of your friendship. She’s materialistic and immoral. She only uses people to get what she wants.”

  “That’s not true! That’s not her! There must be other reasons why she left you. You don’t know her at all. You’re just like the other men who only want to go to bed with her. I bet you didn’t know that her father was paralyzed. I bet you didn’t know that she has to make money to support her family. I bet you didn’t know that she was badly hurt emotionally when she was thirteen. She’s the sweetest person I’ve ever known. Now she’s suffering and I’m here doing nothing about it.”

  Sang Wei opened his mouth twice, but nothing came out. Tears streamed down my cheeks before I could wipe them away.

  “I have to go back to the dorm. It ’s late,” I said.

  I left him. At West Five’s big iron gate I stopped and detoured toward a row of trimmed bushes near the student canteen. I smelled the leaves, then sat against a bush. The earth under me was as damp and soft as a swamp; it felt like it could swallow me.

  Through the space between the bushes I peeked at the road near the lake, where the lampposts looked thin and fragile. The pale yellowish light in the air was strangely dim.

  The road was empty, as if a heavy rain had just cleaned everything I had left behind.

  The door to my room was open but nobody was inside—Donghua and Pingping were playing poker next door. I heard their yelling and laughter and the sounds of cards being slammed down on the desk. I took off my jacket and jeans, climbed into bed, and fell asleep right away.

  Miao Yan returned a few days later. The abortion was done—Du Sheng had called the night before with a message: it went well.

  At lunchtime, Miao Yan showed up in my room. She looked tired and only stayed briefly. She didn’t mention the abortion. She talked about her trip to Shenzhen in a way that made it sound just like any other trip she’d made there.

  I went to her room the next day. She wasn’t in. A note on her desk addressed to me said that she wanted to be alone and asked me not to visit her until she came to see me.

  When Du Sheng called again I picked up the phone. “Keep an eye on her. She went crazy in Shenzhen,” he said, then told me th
at more than once Miao Yan had threatened to jump out of the window of the hotel he had put her in. “I took a week off from work to be with her day and night. I was afraid that she’d do something like that.”

  The temperature plummeted. My parents had heard the forecast and sent me a thick coat, a cashmere sweater, and a woolen shawl.

  After finals, Yishu disappeared without saying goodbye to Pingping, Donghua, and me. She had folded her mosquito net and bedding and put them away in the highest storage cell behind the door. She had rolled her bamboo mat into a tight tube and placed it inside a plastic cover. One day when I climbed up to my bed, I noticed that a picture of her and her mother had replaced the picture of her and her best friend. Her glass vase was still on the desk but for the first time there was no flower in it. A week earlier I had heard a rumor about her from a classmate, saying that she was emigrating to Australia with her parents.

  Pingping had a fight with her boyfriend before finals. Since the poker night she had rarely gone out of the dorm and often slept through the day. When she was up, sometimes she didn’t even bother to change her clothes but walked about in the hallway or the washroom in her pajamas. One night I woke up around three o’clock and saw her standing in the hallway, her hands on the banister. She looked awfully thin, like a dried-out plant stem shaking in the wind. I thought about bringing her a jacket but was not sure if she wanted to be disturbed. The wind was getting gustier and my mosquito net was ballooning as if it would explode and be carried away by the wind. Finally she walked back into the room, shut the door, and pushed in the bolt. She stood with her back against the door for a while before tiptoeing to her bed.

  I wanted to ask her if there was anything I could do to help, but I knew there wasn’t. I hadn’t even been in a relationship. How could I possibly know how to advise her?

  I listened to the whistling of the wind, imagining that it was sending leaves down to the water-filled gutters. I wondered where Miao Yan was at this moment. Was she sleepless, like me? What was she thinking right now?